Spinner

I sew thin leathers as well as sew the felt backing to my 6oz veg-tan tank bibs using a Viking Emerald 316 home machine, it's a bit more of a workhouse than most home machines. There should be a tephlon foot with your machine, this will help a great deal in allowing it to slide over the top layer easily & drop the feed dogs down to the next to lowest setting (1 notch above 0). You'll need to practice at getting the pressure on the foot pedal just right, if done correctly you can slow the machine down enough to control and still punch the leather. I use Schmetz 80/12 Leather sewing needles and size 69 thread. The thread is available at Tandy and other places and the needles can be found at any large sewing supply store. It's not the optimal set-up for leather sewing but for stuff that only needs size 69 thread it does the trick until I can afford a real machine. I have sewn up to 12oz (3x 4oz) leather but commonly just do the 6oz + felt and in a few spots + adhesive backed velcro.

Denatured Alcohol works great for retarding/killing mold spores, then to clean the leather (and lighten if necessary) Oxalic Acid, aka Wood Bleach, or pure lemon juice works great. FWIW, the best lemon juice is straight from a lemon. The store bought bottled stuff is sometimes watered down or has additives that will greatly reduce the lightening effectiveness. Just my 2 cents. Chris

Those aren't leatherworkers, they're ninja assassins in disguise! Seriously though, that is an interesting design. I don't see why any of our resident knife makers couldn't hammer one out (pun intended). It actually looks like the guys just went down to their local armory, stole a poleaxe and cut the handle shorter.

If yuo come across a 28oz one in there Ed, let me know. Still looking for one!

Unfortunately, that machine and many of the others have an F7 or H7 service rating which means they are considered need major repairs (F7) or unrepairable/condemned (H7). H7 usually means they are good for pulling parts off of or salvaging the scrap metal/bodies.

Any thoughts on larger projects? I don't necessarily have the space for a huge dunk tank but many of the projects I do are 24" x 18" before wet forming. Can the 'roon be brushed/padded on? if so, will it yield even results as long as I soak the whole piece as evenly as possible? Thanks, Chris

Just a suggestion, but if you buy a set from either place, buy 2-3 extra of each size. I use them quite a bit in my bibs (easier to paint acrylics over pebbles than crosshatch) so what I did was keep 1 original set of the three and then grind & polish the rest to other various profiles like triangles, squares, tighter turns, etc.

Paul over at LeatherWranglers.com has a couple of great videos (as well as some great knives) of how to sharpen, strop and use a round knife. Definitely worth checking out: http://leatherwranglers.com/tips.html

The scary thing is that taxidermy forum has a larger membership by 50% than LW.net does...who would have thought stuffing the skins would have a larger fan base than making the skins into useful stuff? LOL

Thanks Don, we're talking now and it sounds like we might go with an inset panel of a different color leather so the names show up and the bib will likely be black and the inset panel a burgundy color. For the lasered lines, do they come out the darker color shown on your piece or did you seal & antique it after it was engraved? I'm assuming since you use Corel (I use Xara X1 which is nearly the same) that font size isn't an issue? Is there a minimum font size the laser will achieve good results at? TIA Chris

Hey Don, Have you done work for others? I might have a job for a 9/11 memorial bike tank bib that the client is looking to have all 343 firefighters names listed down the center of the bib and hell if I'm going to tool that! Chris

For hand burnishing birch will be fine. It's a stronger, harder wood than the poplar used by Tandy for their hand burnishing sticks. It will still break down faster than rosewood/cocobolo due to it's wide grain pattern but with hand burnishing that will take awhile. Hitting it with a friction polish like Mylands will help burnish and semi-seal the wood surface/pours which will keep the leather lubricants on the surface instead of in the grain where they can soften it and cause it to break down faster.

Similar, but not quite the same. The leather he is using is called semi-tanned or half-tanned leather. From what I can gather from talking to Tannery folks here in the US, the leather is stopped part way through the normal tanning process so that the center core of the hide remains untanned rawhide. So when the leather is soaked all the way through and then worked, they are actually pushing the rawhide core around and building it up to create hills whereas with veg-tan tooling we are creating and working with the valleys by depressing. Once the hills are adequate for the detail needed, then they work the details into the leather. I bought a piece of the semi-tanned leather from a shop in Germany to give it a try and let me tell you it's much more different from our method of using modelling spoons that I imagined it would be. It takes a bit of practice just to build up enough core material into a hill, getting it to stay and then working that same hill into details without pushing the core material back out of it.

Very nice Shirley! Understated yet inspiring.

Ask Barb if she'll send it first class mail international. I've shipped a ton of burnishers to Canada via this method the shipping should only be $6-10 for a roll of lace. The delivery time is a few days more but if you're not in a hurry that shouldn't be a big deal.

The embossing looks like the Danish/Scandanavian technique of "pauting". It's basically doing everything with modeling tools with a special kind of leather (Semi-tanned or half-tanned). Here's an article that talks about doing basic pauting (translated), he shows the tools and technique about 1/2 way down the page. Be prepared though, the word sheath translates strangely...you'll see what I mean.

The sheath looks very nice, the window of 'ray adds just enough "umph" without being too much. The knife itself is VERY nice looking too, did you make that also?

Thanks, the white was a combination of airbrush & paint brush. Using handheld masks (aka business cards cut to shape) you can mask off the larger portions as you go making it easier. I also use an Iwata CP-S airbrush which can be dialed down to a hairline so that helps as well (not that I could actually paint a straight hairline but that's not the point. ) Basically fill in the major portions and then using the same consistency paint do touch-ups and fill-ins by hand. The sub & water/night fades were all done with airbrush as well. In the lower section, only the numbers and foam spray on the water were done with brushes. On the pin-up, that one is almost all paint brush with the airbrush being used for the shadows and the cricket was about 50/50. For paint I use Golden Fluid Acrylics thinned with Golden Airbrush Medium. Thanks WoT!

For my business, I only buy from W&C reddevil, Tandy is simply for personal use or Patternmaking R&D. Client goods are all W&C. I was referring to the Royal Meadow, which in my experience is FAR from blemish free, at least at my local stores. It does have some nice color and carves decently but the local stock is maybe 80% usable for the most part. I have yet to see a hide from Tandy over 5oz that didn't either have at least a couple of places that have a hole, scar or screwed up splitting not to mention that most have an end that has been sunburned.

The funny part about this is, it's only "not for sale in California" to the general public. Anyone with a business license (which is free) can still purchase those dyes, glues, etc. and a number of stores carry them right next to the other stuff. Most of the time, the reason it's not available to the general public is not due to the use of the product, it's a matter of proper disposal of the waste; rags, bottles, excess liquid, and a quick call or stop by the local fire department and they'll be happy to tell you if anything special needs to be done.

I do quite a few whaletail bibs where the bottom is wrapped. The only difference with a tail only and a full body wrap would be the time to wet form it. The biggest tips I can give you is make sure it's very well cased and I wouldn't try to go much above 6/7oz on the weight. Some of those compound curves can be hell to form if the leather it too thick. Binder clamps or spring clamps make great ways to hold the leather on the tank seam. To keep the clamps & clips from making harsh marks, put a small piece of scrap leather between the clip and the leather being formed. Other than that, take the time to figure out where you can clamp to before starting. Nothing sucks more than to start a wrap and realize the end you're working on has nowhere to clamp to. Also, plan for 1/8-1/4" of shrinkage anywhere you really have to massage the leather over a curve. As it dries it can really tighten up in any area that is straight/flat, the curves will pull on the straights a great deal. If possible, cut any holes smalller than needed, etc. You can always trim & cut to final shapes later. Here's the one I wrapped this weekend. Enjoy! Chris

Yep, that's per square foot. Their hides average 24-26 sq. ft. and shipping from there to Los Angeles is about $22-30 depending on what weight you get. Also, if yoy have the leather split you can request they send you the rawhide split as well. They don't send it unless you ask for it.